U.S. Midterm Elections: only high turnout of afro-american vote, could secure the House to Democrats.

David Bositis, a senior political analyst for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Northwest said that despite media reports, Democrats have a chance to retain power with the help of African-American voters. In 2008, Blacks voted in unsurpassed numbers to ensure the presidency of Barack Obama.

Democrats of late have been employing a two-pronged mobilization strategy when it comes to the party’s biggest names. President Barack Obama has been focusing much of his campaign time in “blue” states, where there are large numbers of Democratic voters to motivate. Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton has spent much of his energy boosting Democratic candidates in “purple” and “red” America, where he is generally viewed these days as far more popular than Mr. Obama.

At the same time, Democratic strategists are also trying to expand the electorate. In 2008, they did just that, successfully enlisting the support of newly registered young, Hispanic and African-American voters to back Mr. Obama. But the president is not on the ballot this year. And even with Mr. Obama campaigning on college campuses and before minority audiences, it will be difficult to motivate these traditionally low-voting groups to turn out for other Democratic candidates in a midterm.

The Democrats won in 2006 by mobilizing the party’s base and registering a big advantage among independents. But the size of the youth and minority vote that year hardly changed at all from the pro-Republican election of 2002, and was noticeably below the levels when Mr. Obama ran in 2008. In the last presidential election, 18% of all voters were under 30, compared with 12% in the 2006 midterm. African Americans cast 13% of the vote in ’08, compared with 10% two years earlier. And Hispanics comprised 9% of voters in 2008, compared with 8% in 2006.

In short, these new voters are a thin reed on which to peg the Democrats’ electoral chances in 2010. But the combination of a reasonable turnout from the Democratic base and help on the edges from youth and minorities may be just enough to keep the Democrats from being buried next week under a congressional landslide. We will know…READ MORE HERE.

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African-Americans are fired up and ready to vote in the upcoming mid-term elections, and a large black voter turnout could upend predictions of a drubbing for the Democratic Party, experts said Friday.

Eighty percent of black Democrats said they were as interested or more interested in the November 2 vote than they were in the 2008 election that saw Barack Obama become the first African-American president, according to a survey by the Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University.

If black voters turn out in the same record numbers as in 2008, they will help cut Democratic Party losses and could even help Obama’s party hold its majority in the House of Representatives, said…READ MORE HERE